Perplexity has released pplx-decider-v1.3 and pplx-decider-flash-v1.3, the latest versions of its open-weight decision models. Perplexity Decider v1.3 is a decision model that returns probabilities, not generated text. It answers yes/no, multiple-choice and score questions about a text or image input. The main addition is Locate, which extracts exact text spans by type or instruction. Weights…
Amazon recently unveiled its refreshed Kindle lineup introducing a new basic Kindle, Paperwhite, and Colorsoft. The new Kindle Colorsoft starts at $290, while the Signature Edition, which I’ve spent the past few weeks testing, costs $320. The base model comes with 16GB of storage, while the Signature Edition doubles that to 32GB and is available…
Sorry, Margaret, your email is working again. After a widespread outage shut down Microsoft 365 services for businesses, governments, and tens of millions of other users around the world, the essential cloud services are now (mostly) back online, according to the company’s status page. The outage debacle began around lunchtime on the East Coast on…
The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday afternoon that it has grounded all flights across the United States due to “extraordinary circumstances” and issues related to safety. The FAA’s website said the cause is an “equipment outage.” The site itself was down for a brief period at the time of publication, with a note that the website…
Anyone who has weathered a hurricane can tell you that the oceans — which fuel the storms — contain a tremendous amount of energy. Thanks to global warming, they’re holding more than ever. A new startup wants to harness that energy to power data centers. Drogue, which has kept a low profile until now, is…
Agent management startup LangChain has raised a $300 million Series C at a $3B valuation led by CapitalG, with participation from investors including Singapore’s GIC, DFJ Growth, IVP, and Sapphire Ventures, the company announced on Friday. That’s more than double its $1.25 billion valuation when it raised $125 million about a year ago, led by IVP. LangChain…
The AI video leaderboard looks very different from 12 months ago. Native audio is now table stakes. Clips run 15–30 seconds. And an open-weights model sits in the top 3. This ranking (as of Nov 13, 2026) uses one quality signal: blind human-preference Elo from the Artificial Analysis Video Arena. We pair it with API…
ChatGPT can now shop for you. On Friday, OpenAI launched a new wallet feature that lets its agents, called dots, help you decide what to buy and then complete the purchase on your behalf. The option will initially be available to a limited number of U.S. ChatGPT Pro subscribers, ages 18 and up, with a…
It was July of 2024, and Jensen Huang was punchy. I had agreed to travel to Denver, Colorado, to interview the Nvidia CEO at SIGGRAPH, the annual confab of computer graphics PhDs and practitioners. Early that year I’d conducted a lengthy sit-down interview with Huang for a WIRED magazine feature, which apparently went well enough—both…
Uber is notifying thousands of drivers that their personal and driver’s license information was stolen during an October data breach at one of the company’s tech providers. In notices filed this week with several U.S. attorneys general, including California, the ride-hail giant said it was notified on October 9 by the provider that hackers broke…
